Shuffled
by somethingsdont
Summary: BB. Speculation piece inspired by and roughly based on the sides for 5.01, The Harbingers in the Fountain


**Title:** Shuffled  
**Author:** Lucy (somethingsdont)  
**Pairing:** Booth/Brennan  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Timeline:** 5.01, The Harbingers in the Fountain  
**Summary:** A speculation piece roughly based on sides from 5.01.

Okay, if you've seen the sides for 5.01, you are probably as undecided as me about the validity of the EPIC SCENE. However, speculation fic is necessary. Happy reading!

* * *

She remembers the crack of the wooden door as it split, remembers Booth rushing in and shooting off two rounds (maybe three; the details are hazy), remembers him kneeling at her side, palm pressed tentatively against her wound, panic flaring in his eyes.

_Bones, are you all right? You're bleeding._

She nods her head – _breathe, breathe _– as her free hand clasps hard over his knuckles. She winces slightly when her own blood seeps warm between her fingers.

_Thank you. He was going to kill me. Thank you._

*

A few years ago, she would have chalked it up to a neurological response to external stimulus. But now, seated at the edge of a gurney in a hospital cubicle that smells like antiseptics and Clorox, she doesn't know.

"I'm fine, Booth." She looks down at her forearm, now tightly bandaged. "They stopped the bleeding and stitched me up. I'm fine."

He steps up toward her, body angling as though prepared to speak, but then backs away again and peers out the door, stature tense. He hasn't said a word to her since arriving at the hospital.

"You're angry," she observes. "Why are you angry?"

"Not at you." His voice is low. "Just—" He stops again, as though considering. "I'm driving you home."

She scoffs. "Not agitated like that, you aren't."

"Bones." He clenches his jaw, and when he loosens it again, his shoulders slump, and his words are quiet. He looks pleadingly at her. "Let me drive you home, okay?"

She doesn't need to ask why and agrees.

*

He tells her something about an ambulance and _it's coming, Bones, hang on_. She's dizzy from the blood loss, and her forehead falls to his shoulder for support. She closes her eyes and tries to focus on her breathing. He tells her _it'll be okay, Bones, you'll be fine_, even though she doesn't need the reassurance. His grip tightens around her arm, ten fingers pressing bruises into her skin.

_Sorry,_ even though he's saving her life. _Sorry._

_Don't worry about hurting me, Booth._

*

She plays with the knobs on his radio with her good hand, and his knuckles clench white against the steering wheel, but he doesn't say anything. Usually, he would, and the change unsettles her. He drives.

He pulls up to her building and shifts his car into park.

"I assume you'd like to be invited in?"

"Whatever you want, Bones."

She frowns. "Booth, _who_ are you angry at?"

"_Not you_," he rehashes stiffly. He takes a deep breath, hand flying across his eyelids. "Sorry, I didn't mean—You almost died. I'm just agitated."

"I didn't almost die. It was just a cut and—"

"I don't think you realize how much blood you lost."

"One-point-two-four liters," she recites. "I entered Class II Hemorrhaging. That's hardly life-threatening, Booth."

"You were—" He laughs humorlessly, guilt spread thick over his words. "I couldn't stop the bleeding, Bones. If the ambulance had been any slower…"

She studies him, works through his fears in her head. She nods in acknowledgement. "I need to shower and change," she tells him, peering out the windshield. She turns her gaze back to him, eyes traveling across the large bloodstain on his shirt. "You appear to require the same things."

"Yeah," he breathes.

She pushes open the car door with some difficulty and slides her feet out. "You can come in if you'd like," she finally decides, pushing herself off the seat. "I have some clothes you can change into."

Just before she closes the car door behind her, she hears him exhale an exhausted sigh.

*

_No sirens. I'm not—Booth, tell them no sirens._

She doesn't remember if he actually does this because her temples are pounding so hard and she's shaking a little and maybe she's lost more blood than she'd thought.

_Lie down, Bones._

_I'm—_

_Shit, Bones. Lie the fuck down._

She complies, if only because she doesn't remember the last time he'd cursed at her. The ambulance door slams shut and they're moving. An EMT presses something cold and numbing against her forearm.

_Booth…_

_Shh, I'm right here._

*

"Why do you have men's clothes just lying around?"

"They're Russ's." She looks up from her seat on the couch and finds him tugging self-consciously at a Pink Floyd tee and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, hair damp. "Find everything okay?"

"Yeah." He slides onto the couch beside her. "How's your arm?"

"A little sore," she replies, turning the bandaged area around on her lap. "Was a bit of a pain to shower with."

He nods. "You should get some rest."

"I made up the guest bedroom for you," she says, wagging a thumb over her shoulder, "if you'd like to stay the night. I assume you're too exhausted to drive."

His head tilts into another nod. "If you don't mind."

"I don't. It's fine."

A silence stretches between them, heavy and uncomfortable. She wonders what he's thinking, and if, after everything, he's really just scared. Of her, and of her response, and of what this means, because she knows that she's terrified. Irrationally so.

Suddenly, he makes a motion to leave. "I'm going to, uh—"

Her bandaged arm lands on his thigh, stopping him. "We're not going to talk about it?"

His eyes darken as they pierce hers. He hesitates, voice low when he speaks. "Talk about what?"

*

He's kissing her. She doesn't know how it'd happened or when, but his lips are soft and warm and pleading. He has a streak of her blood caked across his cheek, and she tastes the metallic tang at the corner of his lips, but he's kissing her. She slides her good arm up, her fingertips fumbling at the nape of his neck, pulling him in, and something changes. There's an edge now, demanding and violent and raw, and he tastes like mint, but it's not—

Shedoesntunderstand. Whatshappening.

Because she's sitting – no, lying down – in an ambulance with maybe sirens maybe not, and there's an EMT fiddling with her arm. And he's kissing her. Thoroughly, as it turns out; tongue and teeth and insatiable hunger.

When he pulls away, it's a little abrupt and a lot guilty. He stares at the space between her cheek and her shoulder, his forehead brushing hers before he sits back up, features apologetic.

She closes her eyes and counts her own heartbeat, waiting for it to slow down. His hand finds hers, the good one, and their fingers loosely intertwine. She squeezes it with as much strength as she has, unsure what she's trying to convey, but knowing the message is important.

He's still not looking at her when they pull up to the hospital.

*

"You kissed me." She watches him intently, trying to figure him out.

His shoulders rise and fall in a tiny shrug. "I'm pretty sure I remember you kissing me back."

"I did, but you initiated," she explains. "I was lying there on the gurney, and you kissed me."

He scratches the back of his head, chuckles dryly. "That makes it sound like I—I don't know." He sighs. "Look, I'm sorry, Bones."

She blinks. "Why are you apologizing?"

"Because it was selfish." He shakes his head. "I took what I wanted in the moment without thinking. You were _bleeding_, Bones."

"I was stable," she argues. "I was okay, Booth."

"It doesn't matter. It was inappropriate."

She tilts her head to look at him, gauging. "Did it feel right? Kissing me? Did your 'gut' tell you it was okay?"

He looks up in surprise, and for a moment, he says nothing. Then, quietly, "Yeah, it did."

"Yet you hesitate." She frowns. "Why do you trust your gut on everything except me?"

"Because I can arrest a suspect as many times as I want," he replies immediately. "If my gut is wrong and I mess up, I start over. There are no changies with you, Bones, no takebacks. I get one shot, and I have to do it right."

"Do you think what you did today constitutes 'right'?" she asks. "There's no right or wrong way to do this, Booth, but we've been relying on moments of danger to bring us together. We can't do that anymore." She lifts her uninjured arm and presses her fingers against his chest. "Use your heart," she tells him quietly. "You're always telling me to use my heart to think, however anatomically incorrect that may be. Listen to your own advice and use your heart on this one, Booth. What's it telling you?"

"My heart says—" He smiles. "My heart isn't sorry I kissed you."

She beams. "I'm okay with that."

He lifts his hand and gently brushes his knuckles against her cheek. "So we're okay? What happened today… is okay?"

"A little poorly timed, in hindsight," she replies with a grin, "but I don't think we've ever mastered falling within societal constraints. We tend to do things out of order, in case you haven't noticed."

"Go out with me, Bones?"

She smiles. "Okay."


End file.
